A small web shrine to tea

Notes on a favorite beverage. Tea is one plant expressible in an infinity of styles, and a refined pleasure.

A mini-primer

Depending on how you process the leaves, tea ends up classified (from lightest to darkest) as white, green, yellow, oolong, red, or black; each family branches out into a fractal of substyles from there. To brew, there are fancy options like the gaiwan or the yixing clay teapot, but all you really need is an electric kettle and a glass teapot with a mesh lid. That gives your leaves room to expand and makes it easy to pour.

Styles

If, like me, you’re driven by a need to try all of the different kinds of a thing, tea will keep you busy for awhile. Notes follow on a few of my favorite styles.

Dancong oolong

Occupying the middle ground between green oolong and moody yancha sits dancong tea. Dancong’s partial oxidation and charcoal roast produces a vibrant tea with peachy, stone-fruit aromas and grippy tannin. Dancong teas are given fanciful names after botanical aromas (honey orchid, ginger flower, almond, pomelo, night-blooming, and the fabulous “duck shit”, which is not, I suppose, botanical). They show a lot of variation and are easy to love.

Yancha oolong

Yancha (“rock tea” or “cliff tea”) is a heavily roasted and oxidized style of oolong tea producing a caramelized, minerally flavor and floral aromas. Some veer into spices or scented-candle territory (sandlewood!)

Sheng puer

Sheng puer is an aged, fermented green tea, and the original puer. It brews a stern, tannic, foresty cup that’s great for late fall weather. It shows tons of variation, ranging from vegetal and briny to woodsy, with camphor, smoke, or grass clippings. Gaiwan is best to appreciate the flavors unfolding in layers, but western brewing works too. Gushu sheng puer comes from old trees and is worth seeking out for its sweeter, brown sugar layers.

Sheng puer is also, regrettably, the site of a lot of woo, hype, and internet disputation. (My take: cha qi is not a thing.) Sheng is the audio gear of the tea world: you can spend as much as you want, to diminishing returns. Unless you want to make it your life’s passion or something, go for value; there’s plenty of complexity to be had for normal tea prices.

Shou puer

A quick-fermented, fully-oxidized tea that’s smoother and earthier than regular black (red) tea. Shou pours a coffee black with an iridescent gleam to the liquor. It shows a range of vanilla sweetness and bitterness, and can shade into barnyard notes. High-quality ones can show complexity, changing between steeps. (Bad ones might have a bit of mildew odor.) For fun, some come pressed into a “chocolate bar” or “waffle” shape where you can just snap off squares from the cake instead of brutalizing your hands with a tea pick or kitchen knife.

Compared to sheng puer, shou is less complex; it’s for chilling, not contemplation. As such, I don’t bother with a gaiwan; I just throw 5g in a glass brewer and enjoy a big, western-style mug.

Being fermented in large, humid piles, this is a weird tea to have to explain, but if you don’t do a big preface, it just drinks like an exceptionally smooth black tea. Everybody at work I’ve surreptitiously introduced it to has loved it (though my wife can’t stand it.)

White

An overlooked style that’s the least-processed of all tea types. You pluck the leaves and lay them out to dry, and that’s it. You get fresher, sunnier flavors than a green tea, reminiscent of wildflowers, linens, and hay.

Experimental styles exist, but the usual styles break down along different plucking grades. All buds nets you silver needle (bai hao yin zhen); adding in leaves gets you white peony (bai mu dan) or shou mei. The higher the preponderance of buds, the more delicate of a cup.

Shops I have frequented

Adagio Teas, Chicago

Approachable chain in and around Chicago. In their brick and mortar stores, you’ll find one wall of flavored teas, with the real teas along the opposite wall. They cover all the main categories, so they’re a great introduction to different styles, with even a yellow tea and a basic puer or two. Good for green, oolong, and white tea staples, and they’ve recently added a “masters” collection of more interesting stuff.

The teas are often given cutesy musical names, so it not always clear what style you’re looking at, but it’s not hard to decipher.

Hugo Tea, Chicago

A tea seller based in Kansas City but with a Chicago outpost. Nice selection of loose teas, also getting into the pressed tea cake game. I think their loose teas are stronger (there’s a fantastic duck shit), but their sheng puers will yield flavor when pushed hard. I use their glass teapot daily.

Miro Tea, Seattle

In the before times, my ideal business trip to Seattle involved cutting loose after meetings, cabbing it up to Ballard, raiding Miro, and stopping for dinner at the Thai place around the corner for noodles and beer. (My only regret: not knowing about the used bookstores nearby.)

Serious selection of teas in canisters lining the back wall and the staff will hook you up if you want to know what’s interesting. If you ask, there’s a three-ring binder of puer, from which I’ve found some serious examples.

No Longer Human, Evanston

High-design tea room in Evanston, IL with an event space and a bar built from Chicago common. Japanese teas only, with a range of greens and an interesting quartet of green oolongs; four cultivars done in the same style.

Spirit Tea, Chicago

Another Chicago seller, sourcing experimental, category-blending stuff. Think red tea cultivars done as a white tea, or Taiwanese varietals grown in Thailand, or new hybrid varietals, or yan cha with a light roast. They’ve got relationships with some creative growers and always have something interesting.

A couple years ago their branding took a high-conceptual turn (“‘Substance’ Tactility & Place. This release celebrates the search for substantivity—the thing itself”), but the tea is always worth seeking out. “Wild Purple” is cop on sight.

Tea Drunk, NYC

Serious examples of classic styles, with prices to match, so it’s special-occasion-only and I ain’t got the budget to sample widely. That’s a shame, because they dive deep, offering like 8-10 varieties each of yancha, dancong, and sheng puer. Which really pushes the “gotta catch ’em all” buttons, except you can’t. Cop if you have the means, and use a gaiwan. Good educational content on the website, for the rest of us.

Tea Harbor, Vernon Hills (closed)

Quiet tea seller in a strip mall storefront in the Chicago ’burbs, now shuttered, but included here for the memories. Shelves of gold tin canisters and bags with a focus on yancha (shui jin gui, rou gui, da hong pao).

Fond memories of hanging out here for a couple hours reading. The staff would make you a tall cup of whatever you wanted from the shelves. I encountered this place as a young tea acolyte, so my notes on the teas are not too dialed-in.

white2tea, China

A Western expat with a penchant for graphic design, producing gobs of puer with hilarious names. A great source (do not miss the Demon Slayer sheng).

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